WHY Do Plugs Have HOLES? The ACTUAL Answer!

Have you ever thought to yourself “I wonder what those holes are for that are in the end of the plug blade”? If so, then this is definitely the video you have been waiting for! In this latest episode of Electrician U, Dustin digs into this topic to bring some clarity to our followers.

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There are several different opinions on the subject that appear on the internet consistently. The first being that manufacturers do this to save materials on the assembly. The train of thought here being a small amount out of each blade, times for each cord (one hot and one neutral on each end) times however many thousands of cords made each year could potentially add up to quite a bit of material savings. While this may have some truth to it, it does seem like a bit of a stretch.
The second school of logic that shows up online would be Lock Out Tag Out, or LOTO. For an electrical tradesman (or tradeswoman) this would consist of any number of ways to remove a source of power to a piece of equipment and position a lock on that part of the system to keep it de energized so that we can perform maintenance or and installation or something of that sort. However, this is also unlikely as it seems too easily bypassed.
Another thought on the subject would be something along the lines of there being an associated bump INSIDE the receptacle to keep it in place when inserted. While this seems like it may be a reasonable idea in theory, plugs go into and come out of the receptacle with relative ease and no definite snap can be heard or felt. Dustin actually disassembled a receptacle to take a look inside to prove/disprove the theory! Once he got a few different types of newer receptacles torn apart, there is in fact no BUMP that would snap into the hole of the plug blade.
So, after going through all those theories as to the mysterious hole in the plug blades, we reached out to Legrand to ask them for some answers! Legrand responded stating that the older receptacles used to have a protrusion on the female portion that would engage the plug blades akin to the last example that we looked into above. This was due to poor spring tension in the female portion of the older style of receptacles. In addition, back then the loads were short term low power loads. With newer technology and materials available to us, this isn’t really needed much anymore, but the manufacturers still tend to make the plugs in this fashion so they CAN still work properly in those older style of receptacles that are still in use in the world!
So, mystery successfully solved!! Y’all continue to follow Dustin and Electrician U as we are constantly adding new content and researching new topics to bring some knowledge to our followers!

#electrician #electrical #electricity